The Month of the Purse

I love purses, but I absolutely hate to buy them.  I’m  cheap frugal conservative with my pocketbook.  Having said that, my most beloved is, of course, the utterly gorgeous Coach handbag that my darlings bought for me for Christmas last year!  But one cannot carry a Coach around every day, and I did read somewhere that it devalues a designer handbag to carry it with, say, grungy sweats to the corner store!  Sewing a designer handbag seemed like the perfect answer.

When I was  in New York, I bought some handbag frames.  Cindy Ann and I both bought a couple, but were utterly at a loss as to how to actually use them!  So began my quest for the perfect handbag pattern.

Imagine my delight when I discovered Nicole Mallalieu!  18 designs and she has classes too!  Now while I could not justify a plane ticket for the class(she is in Australia), – now wouldn’t that make for an expensive bag!- I knew that I had to have one of her patterns. A couple of nice conversations via email, and a couple of weeks later, I had the handles and the pattern for the 300mm Square Snap  in my hot little hand. It is rated for advanced sewers.  

The directions are long, but after reading them through, Irealized that they are long in order to help out less experienced sewists.  Now, being a bonifide Couturesmith (that is where I need to insert a laugh track!) I pretty well could imagine it through.  If you take it step by step, it becomes more obvious as you go as to what is going on and what is next.  I had a couple of “duh?” moments, but usually I was trying to make it more difficult than it needed to be.  There is  a complete list of supplies needed on the website, and Nicole has them all available to order.  I will do a full and proper review when the version for the  PatternReview Purse Contest is done, but meanwhile here is a photo -a pretty poor one! Eventually there will be beading on it….yeah…eventually!  Summerset I am not!

The photo’s will be more in depth as I get into the new version.  I want to be able to show the construction process, and it will be infinately easier with the leather.

The new dilemma is the leather version I am making for the Pattern Review Purse Contest.

The fabric is a to-die-for greenish, brownish – actually olive-y alligator leather that I bought in New York City. Okay – not too sure about the alligator part- I guess I don’t know my reptiles very well(I must have been reading Nancy Drew during that 5th grade class!)  Question of the day is what to do about the handles?  Using the same leather would be too – um- too.  In my opinion.  Black? A greenish mystery fabric?  Gosh I just don’t know! I can generally tell when something is “wrong”, but finding the “right” is a bit of a challenge here.  Here is a thought. The mystery fabric for the body, then switch to the leather for the actual handles.  I am using rectangular rings so the option to change the fabric is there.  Here are the alternatives. 

1.  Black

2.  Green pigsuede 

3.  olive fabric for the body and alligator for the handles(using gold not silver rectangular rings.

I’m kind of partial to the last one.  In person it looks best.  

Hmm -Formatting difficulties abound! Well the indignity of it all- in the blog editor everything looked so pretty! Erica if you can fix this up please do!  Everyone else – the pics should be self explanatory.  Black first, green pigsuede second, yada yada..

Oh yes, and here is my Excellent Blog Award (Thanks Karen!)- I think everyone in the universe already has one, but just in case, Lorna and RHonda, and Kim- passing it on to you!